From: Stephen Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Fri Jun 30 2006 - 23:19:31 PDT
Hi Gene, Glen, and list,
Ah... camouflage uniforms... now we're talking my kind of off topic
topic :-)
> Geeeezz guys... There was Woodland Cammo back in WW2....!! Most
> countries in
> WW2 had it...and the tanner color.. The Woodland was used less than the
> tanner colored cammo...but ---it was there..----and we had the darn
> stuff in
> the 50's and 60's.....
Within the official US military nomenclature, "Woodland" camouflage is
limited to the M81 BDU pattern introduced 1980/1981 and discontinued in
favor of ACU last year. The Woodland pattern was basically an enlarged
version of the previous pattern, ERDL (named after the lab Engineering
Research and Development Laboratory) which started out being used by
Special Forces in Vietnam early in the war. It was soon improved upon
by Natick Soldier Center, making the colors more scientific and
resistant to IR. The Natick version of ERDL is the pattern which was
used by Marines and Army forces towards the end of the conflict through
1978. Though similar, ERDL and Woodland are not the same pattern in
either shapes or colors.
ERDL came in two colorations; Lowland (Green Dominant) and Highland
(Brown Dominant). The "Transitional" pattern, which was made in
1978-1980, was a fairly large production trials designed to replace the
Vietnam era OG-107 uniform cut. Initially the camouflage pattern was
just plain old ERDL, though the cut of the uniform was very different.
There was also a "Lowland" version made as well as an "Upland" version
which used slightly different colors than the previous one. When the
M81 pattern went into production the Lowland colors were dropped and
the Transitional's brown coloration were used. The colors have
remained the same all the way until today.
The cut of the Transitional uniform was a big change from the previous
OG-107 pattern. It was further simplified into what is known as BDU
(Battle Dress Uniform). This cut was replaced by the the experimental
CCU (Close Combat Uniform), which went on to become the ACU (Advanced
Combat Uniform) that is now being phased into service with the US Army.
Only minor changes were made to the uniform during its nearly 25 year
service. The Marines dropped the BDU in favor of MARPAT in 2001 and
the Airforce has had a couple of false starts on their own uniform
since then, as has the Navy. Apparently both have "final" designs,
though this isn't the first time they have said this :-)
Before all of this the US military had two other green based camouflage
patterns that it used. The first is the reversible "spot" pattern
(commonly called "Frog Skin") worn by Marines and a few Army units in
the Pacific starting in 1942. One side was green ("jungle") and the
other tan ("beach"). It was still being issued during the Korean War
from surplus stocks (like so much of the Korean War gear!). The
pattern is often called "Duck Hunter", even though the commercial
hunting pattern that was worn by advisors in Vietnam was known as this
also (the patterns are similar, but not the same). The follow up to
this was called the Mitchell Pattern, but that never went anywhere.
However, a version was derived from this for helmet covers and shelter
halves with brown pattern on the reverse side. In collecting circles
these are referred to as "Wine Leaf" and "Brown Clouds" respectively.
It was widely used by Marines in the 1950s and early 1960s. No
uniforms were officially made in this pattern.
Although "Woodland" properly only refers to the M81 pattern, it is used
as a general name for pretty much any green based camouflage. This is
not correct as many of the patterns called "Woodland" have their own
names. The Brits call pretty much everything "DPM" in much the same
way, which is equally incorrect for the same reason. US Woodland and
British DPM combined dwarf all other patterns in terms of influence on
other armed forces' uniforms. Some are direct knock offs, others are
just heavily inspired by them. The US BDU cut of uniform is probably
the single most widely copied pattern in the world.
Hope that's helpful to someone!
Steve
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